Two-Year Anniversary of Oroville Dam Spillway Emergency

Thursday marks the two-year anniversary of the beginning of the Oroville Dam Spillway Crisis.

Posted: Feb. 7, 2019 5:28 PM

Posted By: Cecile Juliette, Stephanie Schmieding

OROVILLE, Calif. - Thursday marks the two year anniversary of the beginning of the Oroville Dam Spillway Crisis.

On Feb. 7, 2017, chunks of concrete were spotted flying off the spillway, followed days later by a historic mass evacuation.

It all started when parts of the spillway started to break apart. At the time, lots of rain made it so that the spillway had to continue to be used so that the lake would not overflow.

Days later, and for the first time ever, water flowed over the top of the emergency dam spillway.

Less than 48 hours after that, a hole was spotted in the emergency spillway and that's when the entire city of Oroville and all communities downstream were evacuated.

Since then, the California Department of Resources and Kiewit Construction have made a huge amount of progress deconstructing and reconstructing the main spillway, and reinforcing the ground of the emergency spillway.

The Department of Water Resources says more than 1,000 have worked more than 2 million hours to rebuild both spillways.